Black Chocolate
by Haraya
Summary: A collection of bitter, sweet, and bittersweet SnK romance drabbles. Pairing search categories will be based on the two latest stories. Latest story: Hairbrush (Farlabel/FarlanXIsabel) - In the middle of the night, someone is looking for you.
1. Meet (Levetra)

**Author's Note**: I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin or any of its respective characters and am in no ways affiliated with its creator, Isayama Hajime-sensei, bless him. These stories are written for entertainment purposes only and I am in no way profiting from them in any financial terms whatsoever.

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><p><strong>Meet<strong>

You run one final swipe of the now crimson handkerchief against the dull edge of your blade and raise it above your head into the moonlight. It reflects white against your eyes and you are forced to blink in pain. You place it back into its sheath and spend the next ten minutes washing your handkerchief in sewage water. You are tempted to use your drinking water but you have no idea when you will have some again. You are wise beyond your years due to the pain you have had to deal with at so young an age so you wrinkle your nose against the stench as you squeeze and wring. A close inspection: it has turned into a muddy white but at least it isn't red.

You fold it and pocket it. You will hang it to dry properly when the sun comes out.

You escape the moonlight and walk silently towards the row of tall houses. You blend in with the shadows and feel a lot more comfortable. It is an hour past your bedtime but you still aren't sleepy. Today's events run through your head again and again and you still feel a little nauseous when you remember why your blade got splashed with red in the first place.

Your eyes are trained in the darkness and you come to a halt as you encounter a strange sight. There is a girl in the darkness, perhaps fifteen years older than you, and she has red hair. That is the first thing you notice. The second thing you notice is the folded wings on the back of her green cloak and you feel like you have seen them in one of your dreams before although you can't remember which exactly.

She looks strange because such beauty doesn't belong here, in these narrow, stinking alleyways you call home. She doesn't belong here because it is nearing midnight and women should never be out once the sun falls.

You are ten meters away from here but your trained ears hear her voice. "Where am I?" she mutters, perplexed. "Where are the others? What am I doing here?" She feels her nape and neck, a little warily, and runs a hand up and down her spine. "Am I… dead?"

You think she is crazy and move to turn away but pause. You squint. You realize with strangled horror that she _is _and she _isn't_. There but not entirely, like a ghost, like the words _beauty_ and _hope_ and _peace_ and _love_.

You hate those things. They let you down and gave you nothing but pain. You decide that you hate this girl too. You hold your breath and start to tiptoe forward. Bigger men would come to hurt her soon anyway and saving her from the trouble would be doing her a favor…

"Who's there? I'm armed!"

You pause in your tracks and squeeze yourself flat against a wall. You admire her for scoping you out quickly, considering she isn't from around here. You see fierceness cloud her amber eyes but the hostility is mixed with worry and fear, like those of the chickens you are capable of stealing and killing, like those of that man who tried to strangle you earlier today when he realized his mistake too late.

She is in a dead end and once you step in front of her, there would be no space for her to escape. It is nearing midnight and no one would be around to see her soundlessly drop to the ground…

"Heichou? Is that you?"

You freeze; your heart constricts in fear. If you turn around to look at who she was talking to, you won't be able to defend yourself from her. If you try attacking her now, the man behind you would kill you. You are trapped.

The best you could do is to hide in the velvet smooth darkness and wait for them pass by. So you do. While you wait, you stare at her wide amber eyes and you wonder how golden they would look in the sunlight. They stare back at yours and you could see comprehension dawn in them.

You transform your legs into a spring and tighten your grip on your knife. Any second now, she would regret ever coming to this place.

"Hei- Levi!"

You gasp audibly and your eyes widen on their own. You do not have any friends or family and no one knows who you are. You have never met this stranger before and yet she just said your name out loud.

You tense ten times more as she drops to her knees and pulls you close to her. She had run towards you as you stood gaping at her and you are ashamed to know you could have killed her then but didn't out of shock. You decide to end this now and the tip of your knife is against her nape. But you feel her start to tremble: she is crying against you, her tears hot on the side of your neck and one of her hands gently pushes your head towards her shoulder, the other firmly but not uncomfortably pressed against your back.

A curious sensation mildly storms around your navel before climbing up to your wildly beating heart and staying there. You realize that no one, save perhaps when you were a baby and couldn't remember, has ever touched you without malice or plans to hurt you for the first time in seven years…

She repeats your name again and again and does the unthinkable. She sits down, her feet tucked beneath her lap, and _lifts _you – you are so surprised that you drop your knife – and she settles you down on her lap before wrapping her arms around you again. You have enough strength to strangle her but the sweet scent of her hair drowns you and you don't. You do not understand why she is crying. Your chest feels strange as if it's been covered by a thick warm blanket on a winter's eve. Your fist, tightly clenching her shoulders, begin to relax and because you have no place to rest them, you let them stay there. Again, you feel as if you have seen this somewhere before, in a long forgotten dream and the longer you sit, the warmer you become and your heart feels lighter and your shoulders slump.

"Who are you?" you whisper as softly as you could. You are afraid she might leave if you tried anything drastic. "Are you what children call their mother?"

To your surprise she chuckles – no one shows this much emotion in the Underground City – and she gently pushes you away from her so that you could see her face, all glazed in tears. "It doesn't matter," she said, smiling and settling her hands on your face, rubbing her thumbs against your cheeks. "What matters is that you remember what I tell you, okay?"

You nod your head as she wipes away her tears with a knuckle. You wonder if you should consider lending her your handkerchief. She lifts you again, – this time you do not bother to resist – sets you on your feet, and skneels in front of you. She must be a very short lady because you tower over her, even if only by an inch. She places her hands on your shoulder and looks at you straight in the eye.

"Levi, I want you to say this and believe in it, alright? 'I am loved no matter what.' Do you think you could say that for me?"

This lady is very strange. "I am loved no matter what," you say. You do not believe it but you wonder why you ever thought of hating this woman.

She nods her head at you. "I want you to say that to yourself before you go to bed each night, okay? Especially after bad, sad days, will you promise me that?"

"But why should I do that?" you ask. Her smile shrinks by a fraction, and tears begin to hover at the tips of her eyes.

"Because this world is a cruel place and life is almost never easy Levi… but I don't want you to worry about that just yet." She smiles again and instead of wiping her eyes, she wipes yours as if you've been the one crying. "It's okay to fall down and fail sometimes, do you understand? It's okay to make mistakes, and make the wrong choices, and cry…"

"No, it's not," you say, slightly irritated. How naïve she is to think like this! You take it upon yourself to explain. "Failing is not an option. The smallest sign of weakness could kill you out here."

"That's not always true," she smiles and rumples your hair. "You will be my weakness in the future and it's because of you that I will remain strong until the end."

You feel your face contort itself in your confusion. "What do you mean?"

A clock from somewhere up above you begins to chime. Is it just you or is she getting paler? "I do not matter, Levi. Just… just always remember. No matter how hard things get, no matter how cruel life seems, there will always be someone who loves you, understand? Even if you can't see them, or hear them, or touch them anymore, they will always, always be with you, do you understand me?"

She is starting to fade back to _not being_. Irrationally, you know that you will never see her again and panic grips your heart. You do not want her to leave, not yet, not ever. "Wait!" you cry but you couldn't even touch her anymore. "Don't leave me!"

"Remember, Levi," she smiles at you and she is so beautiful, she could be perfect, perfect if she could still touch you, perfect if her voice isn't starting to fade into the heartless whisper of the wind, perfect if she wouldn't leave. Still fading, quicker and quicker, she leans towards you and touches her lips to yours for a fraction of a second. You feel her, not physically, but her warmth is real and soft and wonderful. "I love you, Levi," she whispers and her eyes shine golden. You blink back the tears and stretch out your arms to cling to her but she is gone.

The rain starts to fall through where the piss and mire of the world above fall on your head when you happen to pass beneath them. Suddenly lost and lonelier than you have ever been in your life, you begin to cry…


	2. Home (EreMika)

**Author's Note**: Sorry I've been away for so long; this past week had been the final seven-day cycle of academic induced stress for the school year and the weeks before that had been dedicated solely to useless (did I say that out loud? *coughs*) review resulting in the absence of brain space for these kind of things. Long story short, summer has unofficially begun and I'll have more time to update this and "The Rising" (Chapter 55: Pain completely ruined my plans and now I have to rethink the whole thing!), and write and post new stuff before going on hiatus to finish a year-old Sandman fanfic before I turn sixteen.

I ship ErenMika so hard; Mikasa's unconditional love is just so real and wonderful and I want nothing better than to slap Eren hard in the face and yell in his good ear that he should go choke on his Titan's toenails or something for being too stupid to notice / for ignoring (in which case, he should choke on his big, fat head) the love of such a beautiful, intelligent, talented, faithful young woman with abs (Mikasa's practically my role model in fitness; I'm nothing but skin and bones) who wants nothing more than to be able to love him in peace. It's nice to finally get to write about them even if I'm yet to find a way to miraculously un-one-sided-ify this pairing. Hope you like it!

For Anime-Only-ers: On paragraph 5, sentence 3, the final specific scenario is yet to appear on Season 2 next year, but I didn't give details to keep you from being spoiled.

Pahabol April 20, 2014: I left this out in the air for like a month and a half and when I returned to it and reread it, I found the ending… lame. So I changed it. I hope this is better than the first.

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><p><strong>Home<strong>

Mikasa had always looked at Eren whenever she thought no one was looking. It was one of the unspoken rules that pervaded her life: there was something so magical about her savior's face, the ways his eyes burned with overwhelming determination, the gentle, pacifying power the sight of the upturned corners of his lips radiated. Sure, he wasn't perfect; saying he never did anything to hurt or displease her, on purpose or not, would be a lie. But he had been her oasis more times than she could possibly count and she knew that no matter how much she protected him, it would never be enough to repay how he illuminated and warmed her cold existence back to glorious, meaningful life.

And now, like so many times before, she was watching him sleep. Just the sound of the restive cadence of his breathing was music to her ears, something she never bothered trying to understand; the happiness it gave her was something she could never question or comprehend and she was fine with that. Making sure that he was deep in sleep, she scooted closer to her loved one's side, leaning in to observe the rise and fall of his chest better. As children, when they were as tall as each other, the shade of a tree would be more than enough to grace them both as she watched him rest, but now that they were grown, the shade of the "coconut" (they had all agreed, before their first non-Titan related mission beyond the Walls that the honor of naming all the beings they encountered Outside belonged to Armin, and the strange slender tree that was native only to warm, sandy places was no exception) that now covered Eren was inadequate and she pulled her scarf off her neck to cover his bare, sun-toasted feet which were, for once, not leaving hallmarks on the sand of the beach.

She heard in a tale her mother told her long ago, ages before the Titans or Walls, their people believed that the destinies of those who were made for one another were joined together with the red string of fate and that nothing, not even death, could sever its infinite ties. She remembered the way the strip of red cotton draped itself around his neck and how he had shyly flung it around hers before adjusting it properly when she had started crying on that fateful day and blushed. Even before her innocence was dashed, she hadn't been the kind to build castles in the air out of dreamstuff as the life she had had was more than enough for her, but everytime she felt the pulse on her neck throb life into her against the soft touch of cloth that still smelled faintly of her family, she would be reminded of the man her heartstrings were tethered to, and could not help but think of her mother's words and believe.

The song of the waves fell in tune with his breathing and she carefully tucked a brown lock of hair that had fallen over his face somewhere where they couldn't tickle or bother him into awakening. She wondered how she could have been afraid of him the first time she laid eyes on him when she had been thankful for yet terrified of the dull scarlet that grotesquely colored his knife. The scarf he gave her later was of the same color but to her, it meant nothing but life and though it was no longer as bright, the light of the sun that had shone off his eyes the next day was even more beautiful than any she had ever seen before.

A crab scuttled through the sand at the corner of her eye and she remembered how the wooden floor of their house had creaked as he tiptoed to her room in the dead of night over the following weeks to bashfully offer his shoulder to be the temporary grave of her tearstained face, whispering words of comfort to her ear in an attempt to calm her traumatized heart. His laughter, however, was a completely different thing, and it had shocked her out of her skin and stolen away her heart the first time she heard him squeal in excitement over Armin's proposal that stars were thousands of other brightly shining worlds suspended over the void of the night.

But he changed the day she lost her mother all over again, and for the first time, she caught the whiff of the tang of his terror-bidden sweat, touched the blood off his scars, and counted his bitter tears, and she felt pained that he had to go through the torture that had very nearly broken her. She continued to watch him over the years as he warped into something tougher, stronger, colder but certainly never cruel, and because he never let his feet touch the ground laxly or laugh freely, she treasured every moment his body relaxed against hers after exhausting days of training when he could hardly keep his eyes open at dinner and the times she was able to watch him sleep in peace during their days off. She watched over him when the Garrison questioned his identity and affiliation, watched over him on their return from their first expedition, watched over him after his fight with Annie, watched over him after his first experiment with Hange, watched over him every other time he fell into a coma after that. She stayed by his side when he got sick, got hurt, got weak and got scared and all those times, fear had gripped at her heart over the prospect of losing him, physically or mentally, knowing that if that happened, she would no longer be able to go back home again.

The wind that tousled Eren's hair was gentle and violently torn away from her musings, she watched the restrained flight of his short, brown tresses, entranced and with hitched breath. And then, unable to help herself, she released it in a shaky little chuckle and felt warmth start to hover at the edges of her eyes as the heat in her heart increased a hundredfold. All those times when he had drifted in the fringe between life and death, humane consciousness and primitive oblivion, she had been there, scared that if he opened his eyes again, she would not be able to find him, scared that he never will. Now that the Titans were dead and the Walls had all fallen, there was nothing left for them to do but soak up the wonders of the new world and live or, in her case, watch the hero of humanity sleep in unadulterated peace.

Eren sighed softly and Mikasa watched in silent awe as his eyes fluttered open, slowly and calmly, unburdened and happy. He smiled as their eyes met, when he realized who it was. "Mikasa," he whispered, like a prayer.

She reddened even more and felt her eyes sting and liked it. A few seconds ago, she didn't believe she could possibly love Eren more; now, after hearing him say her name like that, she didn't believe that anything was impossible.

"We should head back now," she said, moving to free his feet from her scarf, turning away to hide her smile. It fell as quickly as it came however, and she carefully slipped her red band of comfort from beneath his soles in silence. She knew he had a different view of her love for him, knew it wasn't her his heart was pining for, knew how slim the chance there was of him ever seeing her as more than his faithful sister.

"Why?" he asked, like a little child. "I like it here. Won't you stay with me?"

She turned to look at him with undisguised surprise and a galloping heart. She thought he was defying her expectations again but the sleepy, innocent look in his eyes crushed her hopes. She gave him a sweet smile anyway. "You're really out of it. Have you been in so deep a sleep that you think you're still dreaming?"

He blinked confusedly at her and his eyebrows made a small furrow. "No. I've been having such a long dream…" he trailed off vaguely with the tiniest of smiles. She wrapped her scarf around her neck but made no move to stand. "This feels like six years ago," she said, unsure if nostalgia was biting at her soul or caressing it. "Do you remember your dream, Eren?"

"Yeah," he said vaguely, wiping a knuckle over his eyes and sitting up. "I dreamt we owned a little bed-and-breakfast by the sea and everyone's come over for our yearly reunion. It's my turn to play Titan for the night and Siegreich slain me so hard, I knocked over the water jug we all uncovered in Africa. And then Arthur, Isabel and Jacques charged over to eat me but little Sakura leapt in front of me right in time and saved me." He smiled wider and looked over at her lazily. "What a nice way to wake up, huh?"

Mikasa had started over the word "Sakura": it was an uncommon name that had the same origin as hers but she had a feeling that Eren wasn't talking about her father's wife. "Who is… Sakura?" she asked tentatively, not at all eager to leave the coconut's shade.

Eren stared at her curiously. "You of all people should know," he said. "You insisted on naming her, remember? It's only fair," he hurried on as if they were just talking about the weather, wiping the last of sleep from his eyes. "I named our first child Siegreich, so our little girl should have whatever it was you wanted."

Mikasa breathed sharply and felt the cold desert her cheeks. "Wh-what?"

Eren rolled his eyes and huffed. "We're getting married, aren't we? I'm not about to let that horseface be my brother-in-law if I can help it." He dug his palm into the sand and tossed the first pebble he found out into sea. He wouldn't look her in the eye but there was color in his tanned cheeks. "You're my bestfriend, Mikasa. After Armin, of course. But I don't plan on staying with anybody else forever." He stood up and pulled on her right hand. "What are you waiting for?" he asked impatiently. "Let's go home already." Mikasa wondered why his shining face was beginning to blur and it was only after a trail of warmth made its way down her cheeks did she realize she was crying.

She tried choking out a word of assent but only managed to sob harder. He sat back down next to her and undid her scarf, which she had flung rather carelessly around her neck. "Hush," he crooned, wrapping then adjusting the scarlet strip of cloth around her neck with utmost care. And then, he hugged her like he first did so many years ago and whispered, "It's alright. You're with me, now."

Glowing and quivering, she let her tears fall and did something she had always been longing to do: she leaned in and kissed him, full on the lips and she cried a little more when he kissed her back, entangling his fingers in her long, silky, black hair.

And when she pulled back, he was still gazing at her, like nothing else mattered to him but the stars in her eyes. "Let's go home, Mikasa," he said.

She enveloped her arms around him, keeping him as close to her as possible and placing an ear against his beating heart. He wrapped her up just the same and kissed her on the forehead. And she said, "I'm already home."

_fin_

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><p><span>Some Headcanon<span>: Eren and Mikasa's first child is Siegreich, the German word for "victorious." This triumphant hunter's little sister's name is Sakura or "cherry blossom," the Japanese national flower, which is also the name of Mikasa's mother (headcanon).

Armin and Historia's kids are named Arthur and Crystal after the legendary King Arthur (I believe Armin's English and Historia's French), and the woman who taught Historia how to read and write and eventually helps her form her own identity (headcanon).

Levi gets married too (BECAUSE HE DESERVES ALL THE HAPPINESS IN THE WORLD) and has a little girl named Isabel (asdfghjkl my feels hurt) and a younger boy named Peter (asdf*ckinghjkl they hurt even more).

Jean marries a nice girl with long straight black hair like Mikasa's and they have two sons, Jacques (called Jean-poi [did I get that right?] by his Uncles and Aunties) and Marco whom Sakura has a crush on ('cause I love flippin' tables).

Sasha and Connie have paternal twins, Sunny and Martin (*bawls*) who are so like their parents that everyone is creeped out ("What exactly do you guys feed your kids?" "Bread and potatoes, of course!" "I see… it does have a… certain effect on people, doesn't it?").

Siegreich, Arthur, Isabel and Jacques are age-groupmates as are Sakura and Marco and Crystal, Sunny and Martin. All the younger kids had already gone to bed during Eren's futuristic vision, save for Sakura, who loves her daddy to bits and won't go to sleep without him. I plan on tossing these guys into a fanfic of their own someday, so…


	3. Soup (Springles)

**Author's Note**: My last story as a fifteen-year-old. This had been circulating the airy vents of my head for a few months now, and who would have thought the one to force me to finally put it down on Word and give it a conclusion would be my sister. _Salamat, kapatid, sobra ko 'tong na-_enjoy muehehehe asdfghjkl.

Note on the Setting and Some Headcanon to go along with it: This is a modern-day high school thing in which the 104th Trainees are sixteen foreign exchange students (namely the Surviving Eleven, Marco, Mina, Thomas, Franz and Hannah) who met back in Junior High and are now still together in the same class in their first year in Senior High with a bunch of other nameless people. Also, nobody's had a painful past or anything of the sort so they're all openly friendly friends with each other.

Japanese Junior High School take up three years usually encompassing students 12-15 years old while Senior High School also takes up three years, harboring 16-19 year-olds.

Note on paragraph 2, sentence 3: I know nothing of MMORPG as I don't play LOL or WOW or Grand Chase or Ragnarok (does that still exist) or any other game of that sort and the closest I've ever gotten to doing so asides from watching my many _Kuyas_ reincarnate ten miles away from where they died would be watching _RPG Metanoia_ three Christmases ago. I have no idea what the acceptable avatar classes so… sorry.

Note on paragraph 21, sentence 3: _Kakigori _is a Japanese street food which is basically shaved ice with syrup and optional toppings. Its Filipino version is the _halo-halo_, which focuses more on the toppings.

And because it's her birthday, this one goes to **vanillaanais723** of deviantart (because Rain the Ralts is just. To. Freakin'. DIE FOR.), number two Springler (I'm number one), number one listener (to those of you who haven't figured it out yet, I'm the regular Hange when not facing a screen or the page of a book and Rei here is my unfortunate and not-that-willing-anymore Eren), number one _imouto_. _Tanjoubi omedetto_, Rei-Rei! Now, hand me over my birthday SnK doodle page before I start bombarding you with more of my Levi feels…

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><p><strong>Soup<strong>

To this day, Connie still isn't sure how it happened. Jean and Ymir, the first original "Springlers" ("Pringles is Sasha's favorite and Springer's your surname, hence 'Springles,'" Thomas had explained to him. "'Sashcon' and 'Consash' don't really sound as nice."), bribed Hange-sensei to hack into their class adviser's phone and post the video on their class's Facebook page, of course, and he watched it a million times like everyone else who, after seeing it for the first time, had either solemnly shook his hand with a flushed face and a wide grin or slapped him on the back harder than necessary while sobbing with laughter. He received the former from most of the girls and some of the boys and the latter from most of the boys and some of the girls (he never knew just how powerful Mina was until she sent him keeled on the floor with shattered knee caps) save for Ymir and Jean, who had both rolled on the floor in front of him, clutching their stomachs and sobbing in pure mirth. Anyway, he doesn't give a damn about them, he knows they're just jealous because unlike him, they've never – no, scratch that, they're just dicks. It's been six months and he still doesn't know what to think but if he had to blame anyone or anything – Freckles and Horseface were both very tempting candidates but try as Connie might, he couldn't find any way they could have possibly been involved on that fateful day – it would have to be his soup.

The rainy season had begun and day after day after day, he and Sasha had arrived at school with sopping wet raincoats and shoes, their bicycles aspirants for rust once the sun comes out long enough to let them dry, their bags a soggy mess of notebooks and papers. They had started the ritual of riding together on their second day at junior high when Sasha unintentionally got Connie out of a traffic incident involving a mad chicken and a sack of carrots with a hole in it at the unfortunate expense of her time and energy ("You owe me a sack of chips!" she had cried at him as they rode home five hours later, her bike wobbling almost as much as her legs) and to prevent any more "suspect exchanges," she proposed that they rode together to and from school from that day on so that he could witness against her opposition, falsely if necessary, in any pending road accidents that happened to involve her. Three years later, nothing has happened yet and because Connie still hasn't found a store in all of Japan that sold Sasha's sacks of chips, he still picked her up on the way to school and rode her home each day. Asides from promising not to tell on each other when Hunger's fangs threatened to devour their stomachs and had to be terminated during class and frustratingly rolling their eyes together behind Jean's back whenever their team failed another MMORPG time mission or tourney because of their squad leader's insatiable need to show off (most especially when they were up against Mikasa's Level 99 Samurai), it was the furthest extent of their friendship and although it went unacknowledged, they were both very content and happy with it.

On the day in question, the sky stopped its relentless lament and instead had chosen to bombard them with the inexorable fierceness of sunshine and everybody got out of bed earlier than the cold would ever permit them in a prickly, sticky state of stagnant sweat. By nine in the morning, all the boys had their polo shirts open and were periodically pulling on or fanning themselves with the collars of their shirts and the girls who had ventured to bring jackets in case the clouds came back were bringing them out to wipe their heads on the sleeves or hoods, their handkerchiefs wrapped in tight knots around their hair to keep it off their napes. Even Mikasa hadn't been able to keep her scarf on until morning break: Eren had ripped it off her neck and stuffed it into his backpack when she insisted on going on wearing it even she was already showing every sign of being about to break out into a heat stroke. Everyone sighed a breath of relief when morning break came over the prospect of racing to the vending machines for ice-cold drinks which quickly turned into irritated groans they realized they had to spend thirty minutes of inescapable torture under the scorching sun. When they returned to the classroom, Connie owed each and everyone of his classmates 120 yen but 31 cans of soda still wasn't enough to cool him down and when lunchtime came, he rubbed his cool metallic flask of water against his neck and temples before all but emptying its contents into his parched throat.

And then he spat it all out and bellowed.

"Hey, quiet down there, Connie," said Reiner strictly from three rows behind him, two seats to his left. Then he took a good look at Connie, who was half-dancing, half-jumping on his spot with a gaping mouth and said, "Hey, what's the matter? You look like your mouth's on fire-"

"Ohh, fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK, MY MOUTH'S ON FIRE!"

"Water then!" exclaimed Eren, who had started in his seat along with everybody else over Connie's first outburst. "Hey, SOMEBODY CALL THE FIRE BRIGADE!" he yelled over his shoulder to anyone who might listen.

"Calm down everyone," said Marco, in a valiant attempt to retain order. "Who here has water?"

"I don't have any," said Franz, and half the class nodded their heads.

"Mine's all out, I'm afraid," said Hannah, voicing out what everybody else had to say.

"Um," proposed Bertolt, "why don't we hold him under the sink?"

"But they're all under repair, remember?" said Jean. "From now until Tuesday-"

"SCREW THEM! SCREW _YOU_!" Connie spat out at Jean, stuffing relatively cooler paper into his burning mouth then bawling as they made contact with his tongue. By this time, everybody had risen from their seats to get a good view of the source of the ceaseless cacophony of alternating yelps and wails that was their shortest boy and a few had reluctantly moved forward to try and offer help.

"Please calm down Connie," crooned Krista in a soothing tone. She had taken advanced first aid classes over the spring break and everybody automatically hushed to hear what she had to say. "Just take a few deep breaths. If you can still talk, it can't be that bad."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT CAN'T BE THAT BAD, I'M DYING IN HERE!"

"DON'T YOU SHOUT AT MY KRISTA!" Ymir roared back.

"I'll run for the school nurse!" said Thomas, bolting out of his seat and dashing out the door as Connie released a quick string of curses.

"What's going on?" asked Sasha, running out of the bathroom and into the throng. "What happened?"

"Connie almost drank a flask full of hot soup he mistook for water," Mina rapidly explained, half-yelling through the din. "Maybe his mother had been expecting a cold day."

"He's overreacting," said Annie simply, but there was worry in her eyes and concern at the edge of her voice.

"Just leave your mouth open, Connie!" screamed Armin, grabbing the nearest textbook and flapping it in front of the boy's opened mouth. "We'll try to cool you down!" Connie took on the idea and started fanning his face with his hands but that didn't stop his yelping.

"Connie," said Mikasa with the air of a man on a mission. She gently pushed Armin aside and hurriedly wrapped her scarf around Connie's neck. "Now, breathe deeply. Do you feel better?"

"HOW THE FUCK IS THIS SUPPOSED TO HELP ME!?" he hollered, causing Mikasa to jump back a few paces back. Armin immediately resumed his post. "I'M MELTING, GODDAMMIT, HEEEEEEELP!"

"Oy, don't you shout at her!" shouted Eren.

"That's my line, you bastard!" screeched Jean.

"But… don't you feel better-" mumbled Mikasa half-apologetically, half-confusedly, as everyone else made way for Jean and Eren to take their bickering elsewhere.

"Connie!" said Marco, shoving the flask's cup-like cover with a bit of soup in it under the boy's nose. "I touched it and it isn't all that hot! Just lukewarm! You expected cold and were just surprised, that's all!"

"He's under placebo, Marco," said Annie, tucking her bangs behind her right ear as Connie started chanting, _No it ain't, it's HOT, HOT, HOT, HOT, HOT, HOT, HOT-!_ "Whatever we tell him now won't help."

_HOT, HOT, HOT-! _"What is placebo?" Bertolt timidly asked.

"It's when he believes whatever his brains tells him instead of listening to reason!" explained Armin, dancing along with Connie, still trying to aim the gusts of his math book into the boy's mouth. "That, and I'm starting to get a little dizzy-" _HOT, HOT, HOT, HOT, HOT-!_

"Then we'll just have to calm him down!" said Krista _HOT, HOT, HOT-! _"Come one, Connie, you can do it! Think of ice cream and popsicles, soda and_ kakigori-_"

"Are those… welts in your mouth, Shorty?" said Ymir, peering into the boy's mouth.

"Ymir, that was unnecessary!" said Reiner harshly as Connie's pitchy voice stopped to make way for a gasp before intensifying its pitch in a long and undisturbed shriek. "I'm giving you cleaning duty each day for the rest of the month!" The girl just stifled a sadistic little giggle as everyone turned to look reprimanding daggers at her, jabbing their palms against their ears.

"I'll take care of this!" announced Sasha, gallantly bounding onto Connie's chair and leaning forward to grab a hold of the boy's face. "Just hold still, Connie, hold still!" And then she closed her eyes and dived.

At first Connie was puzzled as to why his screams were coming out muffled and why nobody was talking anymore. And then he took a look at Sasha's scrunched up face which was dangerously close to his and realized numbly that the soft, firm, moist warmth that was pressed against his mouth was attached to her.

When she pulled away, he stared at her with an open mouth and he remained that way when she said, "Well? How are you feeling?"

"Wh- what just-?" Connie heard someone stutter from what felt like miles away. He didn't care. He was too busy gaping at Sasha.

"Daddy told me the best way to cure someone is to shock them out of it," said Sasha, straightening from atop Connie's chair and addressing her classmates. "And kisses are also the best soldiers against minor booboos."

"K… ki…" stammered Connie. "You did _what _exactly?"

"I kissed you!" said Sasha with a proud grin and red cheeks. "Bet you didn't see that coming, eh? And now you're all better, aren't ya? Sasha Blouse's Booboo Kisses are the absolute best!"

"S- sure," he answered, not really thinking. "They're the… best…"

He gawked at Sasha and everyone gawked at him and no one made the slightest peep or movement.

One lifetime later, an electronic _beep _shocked them out of silence and everyone listened to their neck bones crackle as they turned to look at Levi, who was standing at the door with his iPhone in his hand. He stared at the screen, pressed a button, and Connie listened to Sasha's recorded voice answer his yowling with a warning cry and the collective gasps of the rest of the world that followed. Their sensei nodded in self-assurance that the rest of the video was probably working perfectly, clicked his phone off, pocketed it and faced his students.

"You brats are just adorable," he said dryly with something that might have been the gleam of amusement in his eyes and the tiniest quirk of a smile at the corners of his lips. "Let's take a break. No classes. I trust your homework would be ready by tomorrow." And then he turned away and slid the door shut behind him with a quiet _click_.


	4. Hairbrush (Farlabel)

**Author's Note: **Gosh, I still can't believe it's been a whole year since I posted this anthology here! It's been a blast so far and I wanna thank everyone who's ever taken time to read any of my stories. Look forward to more and better (hopefully more frequently updated) ones. (:

**Update 7/12/15:** If it isn't obvious yet, I love this ship. Also, this wasn't custom made for FarIsa week *sobs* but it happens to have Holding Hands in it so it fits Day 7 *woot!* I wanted to make something/s just for this year's FarIsa Week, but alas, college life is coming and prepping for it is eating up my days already. Hopefully, I'll get to have a lot more time for a fic for each prompt next year. -w-

Thanks to **_iskrytaller_ **and **_runningwolf62_ **of **Tumblr** for bringing us fangirls and boys together for celebrating this beautiful heartache of a ship! *cries tears of joy then jumps off window* I should make my own account soon…

Hope you like this, fellow FarIsassies! (Do we have a name yet? I nominate this?)

* * *

><p><strong>Hairbrush<strong>

The look of the letters on the report with a name that isn't yours seem to be genuinely from its owner so you drop your quill to its inkwell to look for snags in the contents. Finishing, you recline as far as the nonexistent backrest of your chosen bench would allow and hear the metal contents of your pockets rub and clink against each other.

You sigh. _Lazy asses._

You place the sheet unto the pile nearly as tall as a quarter of the span of your hand to your right, slightly comforted. For the twelfth time since you thought it up, you are torn between getting some gardening tools and seed of the most colorful flowers you could find or mixing all the money you have for a fine dress and silk hair ribbons.

You yawn, your jaw crackles. You will decide tomorrow when you get her choice.

You pinch your candle's flame and move to pack your things in the comfortable darkness. It's the end your first night out within the premises and you still couldn't conclude if it had been as worthy as all the badly fenced orchards at least two miles away from HQ you've been moonlighting for over a month now. Fingering tonight's earnings, you think perhaps it is.

You have a lifetime's worth of reflexes and find yourself beneath your table with your equipment. You squint at the direction of the intruder's steps ringing louder through the silence of two in the morning. The pounding in your ears calm mildly when you discern they might be sleepwalking: their dragging, lilted pace certainly suggested that, and they didn't have a light. You wonder for a second then decide to take your chances.

You take crouched strides backwards then plan to rush to where the dining hall's door was with the silence of a man who's lived beneath the ground all nearly all his remembered life. When it opened and the person walked in, you would rush out before they realized they hadn't been alone.

Maybe it's because you've grown used to having a full stomach for most part of the day, to having clean water to drink and bathe in whenever you desired, to feeling the warmth of the sun and the cool of unbesmirched rain and being lulled to sleep each night with a wind that didn't smell of sewers and death. Whatever the reason, you listen to the door creak and catch the glint of a pair of eyes in the moonlight and dully realized that for the first time in twenty years or so you have misjudged your distance from danger.

Your hand flies to your knife in its hilt and you only remember it isn't there once your candle holder crashes to the ground and the twin orbs that bear into yours widened to a clear focus. And through everything that you recall all at once – counting the twenty-seven reasons why you could possibly be out of your quarters at this hour with nearly every soldier you share rank with's reports of their previous day with the Garrison, and that pulling out a knife on any coworker equals to resigning from the Legion and any military branch forever – you recognize the green boring a hole into your soul.

Both circles are surrounded by red like blood through thick gauze and beneath those are tangible shadows stretching down to hollow cheeks like a ditches for a street of corpses, mottled with what you know to dried tears and snot. You swallow to ignore whatever it is that rends your heart.

"Hey," you say and feel your own smile twitch. "Look who decided to get back to civilization."

There is no obvious effect on the girl, none immediate anyway. You face her wild hair alone when she bows like whatever she'd found in your face hit her. She drags her feet forward until you see she is wearing a grey shirt too big for her, and then you can't take it anymore. "Iz. Isabel. I- let's get you something to eat."

She eyes you again, intently like she was looking for something. After about an hour she just looks dead and drags herself along until she reaches you.

You had travelled to the other side of the table and now you swallow down the disturbance in your throat. "Let's get you a proper meal first," you coax, gently lowering the shaking connection of bones shaped like a hand she lays out to you. "And a bath. We'll sneak into one of the officer's bathrooms and I'll boil you some water for the tub." You remember how she nearly succeeded in killing herself the last time you left her alone to bathe and add, "I'll wash you up. I won't mind."

She shook her head like it is leaden and weakly, slowly, punches your chest. You only just notice she has something in her hand and something rips your heart again – she is literally starved out of her mind.

"This can wait. You must be hungry. Well then, at least let me fix you something up before we start so you could eat while-" But she'd already plopped down at your feet and, giving up on hovering, you follow suit and sit.

In your hand is an ancient hairbrush that might have been spring green a very long time ago; its remaining bristles looking like they could be used to tangle one's hair up, not the opposite. It is something you find out of the gutter and leave there without doubt, something even the lowest of leprs would say no to. You wonder where she chanced upon this up here because it certainly wouldn't be something she'd brought up from your old home and you are quite sure none of you wanted anything to do with traipsing through canals ever again, even if under the sun. Not knowing why, you hold it up to the moonlight: her name is etched on the handle with precise knife strokes, the kind that made yours appear clumsy and unintelligent, the kind that killed many a man who had ever tried to touch her.

And then your hand runs it through fierce-red knots as their owner, scarcely half your size, babbles on and on atop your lap. You pretend to be annoyed and tut and order her to hold still just so that you could see her pout at you and receive the _disgusting _kisses she blesses your cheeks in order to 'rightfully piss you off'. Now she is almost a woman saying something about old times' sake, kneeling in front of your seat on the bed while forcing the withered thing into your hand. When you pretend to be irritated on acceding, you make sure she sees your eyes roll when she smothers your face with her beaming lips because otherwise the action would have been pointless.

The vision is gone and you try your hardest not to cry.

You don't know how many hours you go through the same motions, pedaling your arm back and forth and back and forth over the horrid mess her hair had become. You stare at fist clenching and unclenching at the stone floor until the world blurs into full bowls of porridge in the morning, barely nibbled loaves at noon, almost untouched meal trays at night, and all the ignored and rotting fruits and sweets and sweet tea in between you'd been offering the girl before you for six weeks. In your head, she leans on you to the bathroom as her form of daily exercise, and you glare at anyone with an expression who looks at that occupied stall in the men's room you guard thrice a day. You shield her from your roommates when you change her clothes before and after sleeping, you watch her sleep on your bunk during breaks and listen to her cry into your chest each night.

_We'll go together,_someone says out loud. So you follow with Isabel. And then the world shakes and everything screams and above all else grey circles commands you to protect her, pleads that you did so forever; you could only nod before they glows a grateful silver, now fully at peace and unafraid it turns away from you to give the sun of its life one last _I love you_-

And then… and then…

"I need to let go."

Your head snaps up, full aware of the magma trailing down your cheeks. "I need to let go," Isabel repeats, voice so soft she might as well not be talking at all. "I don't want to," she confesses.

You take your time to unlock your clenched teeth and look down at her now perfectly straight strands. "He'd never would have wanted you to rot alive. I think… I think he'd rather you'd never existed than that."

"I know that," she says. "But I don't want to lose him anymore than I already have." You had moved to wipe your tears but now let your face absorb them. "I wish I'd never learned to love. Then I wouldn't feel like I'm missing something. I wouldn't feel like I've lost why I'm alive."

The crickets, curiously enough, stop to listen in on you two. You irrationally think it must be nearly three and your mouth moves on its accord: "Isabel… am I not… a reason for you to live too?"

You don't know why you said that but her bewildered expression perfectly explains why though not in words. Tenderly you help her up, place her by your side on the bench, hold her hand, pick your words. You inhale and exhale.

"We won't stop hurting or missing him. I doubt we could even if we tried. But we could bear the burden together. Like family. Not brother and sister… but family still. And after it gets easier, we would still have each other." You manage to present a smile through the last of your tears. "You can't replace my best friend and I can't be your Nii-san. But you could be his noisy little sister I've sworn to take care of. And I could be your naggy, dead-annoying, wimpy old Farlan like always."

You stare into her eyes, green and still alive. Broken, hurting, but infinitely hopeful the moment she comprehends she isn't alone. She sobs without control, flies to your lap and squeezes you. You release the hairbrush to fully squeeze back, like a mother to her child. Like a Farlan to his Isabel. You think of nothing else save for how much you love her.

Tomorrow, she will spend the whole day feeding herself while you attended to your duties, and she will return to the girls' room. On the next she'll join the groups assigned to cleaning up base for the day and when her flesh returns and her muscles grow back to what she had before, she would ride and fly and kill the Titans with him and everyone else once she's ready.

On that day, you'd both stop crying even in the nights. You will set all her brother's possessions on fire and free. She will keep what he had given her and so would you, but most of all you are going to keep each other.

There is nothing else for the both of you to hold on to after all, and you count yourself lucky that it is her of all things you are guarding and clinging to for the rest of your life.

Isabel grips you harder and curls up tighter so that her ear is over your beating heart. She whispers when all her snuffles are spent - "Don't ever leave me, Farlan."

So you draw back to kiss her on the forehead. Right where Levi used to.

"Never."


End file.
